Thursday, July 19, 2012

The next few days in Omaha we spent seeing some of the local sites/museums.

We went to the drive through wild animal park affiliated with the zoo where we got to see lots of elk, deer, buffalo and bald eagles up close.

We then headed over to another favorite spot of the trip - the Durham Museum. This gorgeous museum is located in the old Union Station which was build in the 1920's with amazing art deco style architecture. The museum is HUGE and you could spend so much time there and miss half of it (like we did). The museum basically contains the entire history of the state. They have old train cars and buses on the platform you can walk through as well as several walk through exhibits including a life-size teepee, covered wagon, Indian hut, old schoolhouse, country stores and homes, as well as an exhibit of historic documents and coins and the cities photo archive.

They also had the old soda fountain counter still up and running - so we couldn't pass up getting a banana split

Which Abby sure enjoyed

Later that night we went to downtown Omaha and walked around the Old Market area which is just a set of old buildings with fun little shops and restaurants in them

then we walked on the worlds largest pedestrian bridge which crosses the Missouri River into Iowa

The next day (Sunday) we went to the Winter Quarters visitor's center and learned all about the pioneers as well as the old tabernacle. We also went to the Mt. Vernon Gardens which, despite their name and description, looked nothing like Mt. Vernon (although it was still pretty).

And of course, we couldn't pass up visiting the little city of Benson: